Abstract:
Our voices can convey many different types of thoughts and intent; how our voices carry them is often not consciously controlled and as a consequence, unintended effects may arise that negatively impact our relationships. How we say things is as important as what we say. This paper presents methodologies for computing a set of physical properties from sound waves of a speaker’s voice directly, referred to as acoustic measures. Experiments are designed and conducted to establish the correlations between physical properties and auditory measures for human perception of sound waves. Based on these correlations, a voice coaching app can guide users, in real-time or deferred retrospective, to modify their speech’s auditory measures, such as rate of speech, energy level, and intonation, to achieve their intended communication goals.